One of the most distressing trends of Holocaust commemoration is the
way the destruction of European Jewry has become a metaphor for
anything anyone doesn’t like. Many in our governing class may be
aware of the history but fail to understand that using it as a
talking point in denouncing their opponents is not merely in bad
taste but actually contributes to the trivialization of the topic. In
recent years, a number of politicians from both major parties have
made the same mistake. But, just in time for today’s Yom HaShoah
commemorations, Politico reports that a Republican candidate for the
U.S. Senate in West Virginia has chimed in by comparing regulations
in the state’s Monongalia County requiring buildings to state they
are smoke-free to the Nazi policies of forcing Jews to wear Stars of
David.

John Raese’s criticisms of the nanny state at work may be
on target,
but like other recent offenders (a list that includes Democrats like
California Governor Jerry Brown, Tennessee Rep. Steve Cohen and
Florida Republican Rep. Allen West who all compared political
opponents to Joseph Goebbels), he needs to understand that comparing
such things to the Nazis is both inappropriate and ill-
informed.

After decades of attempting to perpetuate the memory
of the
Holocaust, it is dismaying to think that the effort has succeeded to
the point where it has become a universal metaphor for unpleasant
political rhetoric or unpopular government policies. But while all
forms of tyranny are to be despised and all acts of genocide (actual
or potential) must be resisted, the Holocaust is a unique chapter in
history and should be respected as such.

As for Raese, listening
to the video of his speech, one sees that his
problem is he can’t seem to understand there is a difference between
the impulse to liberal fascism – in which the left mobilizes the
power of government to compel society to accept their ideas — and the
actual Holocaust. He also wrongly says that Nazis forced “everybody”
to wear Stars of David. No, they didn’t. It was just the Jews who did
so, and that’s the point of bias he fails to understand. That he
referred to Franklin Roosevelt in his speech as “Fidel Roosevelt”
while criticizing the New Deal’s excesses just adds to the
impropriety of his remarks.

But while Raese, a perennial GOP
candidate who has little chance of
defeating Democratic incumbent Joe Manchin, isn’t significant, the
trend his comments exemplify is troubling. It’s high time American
politicians stopped using the Holocaust as a catchall metaphor. It
ought to be clear by now that an iron rule of political discourse is
that he or she who mentions Hitler first generally loses.